EU court refuses retroactive travel-pay top-up for non-EU-origin staff

EU officials and agents whose place of origin lies outside the Union cannot use the 2024 Dumitrescu ruling to reopen their 2014–2023 annual travel allowancesEuropa. On 11 November 2026Europa the General Court dismissed in full the actionEuropa of six temporary and contract agents in Case T-193/25Europa, holding that the Commission owed them no retroactive correction of the lump sums paid under the since-condemned capital-of-nationality ruleEuropaEuropa.

The applicants — Portuguese, French and Dutch nationals posted in Brussels with places of origin in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Douera in Algeria, Mexico City and Bujumbura — saw their yearly travel lump sum computed, from the 2014 staff reform, on the distance to their national capital rather than their place of origin: Brussels–Lisbon or Brussels–Paris, and for the Dutch applicant Brussels–Amsterdam, which fell below 200 km and paid nothing. Those calculations first appeared in their June 2014 — and for one applicant June 2017 — payslips, which none of them challenged. After the Court of Justice held in April 2024Europa that the capital rule arbitrarily differentiated among officials with non-EU originsEuropa, the Commission switched everyone back to origin-based distances from 2024Europa, reflected in the June 2024 payslips.

An upheld illegality plea produces effects only between the parties to the dispute concernedEuropa, the Court recalled: it cannot be invoked by those who let the time limit pass against decisions taken under the condemned provisionEuropa, and a general change of administrative practice going forward does not retroactively reopen situations fixed by final decisionsEuropa. Nor did the 2024 switch discriminateEuropa: from 2024 every official is paid on origin distanceEuropa, so no differentiation remains, and for 2014–2023 all officials were treated alikeEuropa — the applicants themselves conceded the Dumitrescu litigants were not comparable. With no duty to correct and no discrimination, the legal-certainty plea needed no examination, and legitimate expectations failedEuropa for want of any precise, unconditional assurance from an authorised source.

The staff-care plea failed tooEuropa: that a claimed sum is small for the institution but significant for the official does not by itself create a right to payment, and pursuing budget savings does not in itself breach the duty to weigh the official's interests. The damages claim fell with the annulment claimEuropa, and the applicants must bear their own costs plus the Commission's; Parliament and the Council, intervening for the Commission, bear their own. The case was heard on 5 May 2026, with French as the language of the case.

Legal basis: judgment of the General Court of 11 November 2026, IH and Others v Commission, T-193/25, following the judgment of the Court of Justice of 18 April 2024, DumitrescuEuropa, C-567/22 P to C-570/22 P.